Dataset Limitations

The analysis dataset includes three limitations, acknowledged by the FDOC,20 but
ones that should not impair their use in this study. First, some inmates released
from prison in Florida who commit subsequent felonies are sentenced to local
jails rather than returned to the department’s jurisdiction. Felonies
committed by these offenders do not appear in the recidivism analysis dataset.
Based on analysis of data from another source that includes data on most felony
sentences to jail, the FDOC reports: “At most, including jail data would
raise the re-offense rate estimates by an average of 1.2 points with a maximum
increase of 1.6 points in the 3-year range. This minimal effect reflects the
low probability that former prison inmates are sentenced to jail instead of
prison for subsequent felonies.”

Second, inmates released out-of-state are removed from the analysis. This
is necessary because the FDOC does not have access to corrections data from
other states. The department notes that, “Using only Florida data to
determine whether an inmate who was released out-of-state re-offended and returned
to the department’s custody would skew the recidivism rates lower.” However,
based on estimates of out-of-state arrests reported by the U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics and the ratio of reconvictions to arrests, the FDOC reports that
including releases outside Florida would “increase these re-offense rate
estimates by an average of .85 points, with a maximum of 1.3 points at 60 months.”

A third limitation is that inmates who die subsequent to release are not
excluded from the analysis. However, post prison release deaths within 60 months
occur in a small minority of cases, and are unlikely to affect rates substantially.
Since this research focuses on comparing recidivism rates between inmates housed
in public and private facilities, the only way these data limitations could
bias the results is if the likelihood of jail sentences for new offenses, out-of-state
releases and re-convictions, or post-prison death are different for public
and private prison inmates. The authors are unaware of any theoretical reason
why these factors would differ between the treatment and control groups analyzed
for this study.